Member Spotlight: Suzanne Wadley Rhodenbaugh

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? It’s my greatest joy. And for the world, it’s a way toward making meaning — people need this. You see it at important times in people’s lives — they want someone’s words to take the chaos and make something clear, something they can come back to and hold onto. Everyone feels the same things writers feel, but writers are gifted with the ability to bring things to consciousness and express them, fearlessly.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? I don’t try to force writing. I write only when something moves me strongly, though sometimes I just fool around for fun. I revise all year long, almost every day. Decades now! I’m disciplined, but I don’t like gimmicks.

What is your favorite time to write? Morning. My mind is freshest and I have the best chance of having enough time to develop something.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Molly Peacock told me that, in forming a poetry mss., I should let one poem suggest the next, whether the tie is subject, or sounds, or imagery or setting or whatever.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? I detest “today’s age.” We have already moved away from being a literate civilization to being one just a step above smoke signals and grunts. Computers and I-phones should all be smashed.

Suzanne Rhodenbaugh’s The Girl Who Quit at Leviticus is out now with Homestead Lighthouse Press.